Settling

Yesterday's heating farrago finished with the LPG back-up boiler showing a red light on the BMS. It was still red at 5.50am this morning, but mysteriously disappeared by 6.50am. We know how the biomass boiler works, the reason for any problems we now have (over-sized fuel) and how to fix them. It's like an old car; you lift the bonnet and can see the mechanics, and anyone (who knows what they're doing) can get underneath it and tinker. The LPG boiler is a whole different kettle of fish. When you lift the bonnet on a new car, it's an impenetrable mask of electronics.

A week last Friday I tried taking the 'short cut' to Pershore station and lost my front number plate in the ford. Gabriel noticed it was missing over the weekend, but then I squashed my thumb - common sense very much in short supply that weekend - so I waited until today to get a new plate. Driving back up the hill to the abbey, there were no vans or diggers in sight, and something within me settled slightly.

Later in the afternoon, gulls and rooks were jostling for position in the field next door while it was being ploughed. A group would start up, circle and feint to land, and circle some more. One or two would then set down, to be harried by one or two others, and start up again, and settle, and start up, and harry, and settle, and so on. As I was watching them from my window, three female roe deer came from behind the pond into my binocular sights, and strolled across the cut as cool you please. One was light brown; the other two were already darkening to black-brown, and one of these had a particularly pale scut. They mooched a while just where the slope hid them from view, then white tail led them off south, springing over the fence. The new-planted trees are being well protected from nibbling and rubbing, and the kitchen garden wall should be higher than their springing range.